The Washington High School Achievement Above All (AAA) awards were presented at the Glendale Union High School District Governing Board meeting on October 17, 2018.

Renee’ Lisowski was selected as this year’s AAA teacher. She began teaching English Language Learners at WHS in 2009. In addition to teaching, Ms. Lisowski is an important leader on campus serving as the ELL Department Chair. She is respected by her colleagues and is always willing to give a helping hand. She is a tremendous resource to our ELL parents by not only helping teach their children English, but teaching them English as well through our Adult ELL program. When asked about what she is most passionate about concerning teaching, Ms. Lisowski said, “I love seeing the confidence grow in a student who once felt as if they couldn’t do what was asked, then realizing that they can!”

The faculty of Washington High School has selected Aurora Gabow as this year’s AAA student recipient. Before coming to Washington, Aurora attended Palo Verde Junior High. Her freshman year she was placed in honors courses and thrived. As a sophomore, she took more honors courses and began her path to Advanced Placement by taking AP World History. As a junior, she took AP Language, AP U.S. History, and AP Biology. Finally, her senior year she has continued to take AP courses by adding AP Literature, AP Calculus, AP Physics and AP Government. All of this hard work has placed her in the top 1% of her class with a weighted GPA of 4.8.
Besides being an excellent student, Aurora is very involved on the campus and in the community. She is the President of our National Honor Society, a student representative on our site council, and is actively involved in our Teen Court program, along with our Educators Rising Program. Over the summer, she won first place at the National EdRising Conference. She was also recognized as an AP Scholar with Honors from the College Board. She believes that all of her life achievements have come from her desire to learn and grown, which were instilled in her by her parents.

This year’s AAA student group is Washington High School’s RAMS United Program sponsored by Joe Hummel, Anthony Fears, Samantha Berry, Ry Bolodo and Alex Gendreau. RAMS United’s purpose is to unify Washington High School by engaging students, faculty, and administration in creating a climate of inclusion, acceptance, respect, and human dignity for all students with and without disabilities. They are actively involved in a number of activities including unified soccer, basketball, cheer, and track. This past year, we were designated as a Unified Champions School by Special Olympics North America for the work that this group has done. RAMS United would like to continue to build on the values, principles, practices, and experiences of Special Olympics. With that, their true mission is to create lasting memories, bonds, and strong youth leaders through authentic inclusion. Besides this, the group has big plans of expanding to include unified robotics, hiking, dance, and gardening.

AAA support staff member Debbi Lohr works daily with our students to ensure that they are able to navigate the college and career world, as our College and Career Specialist. She has been working in this capacity for the past 4 years. One of her colleagues had this to say, “Debbie goes above and beyond for our students day after day. She has made so many important connections for our seniors and their post-secondary plans. She is the best there is at what she does.”
She has the goal of wanting to ensure that all of our students not only succeed in high school but have the skills and knowledge necessary to succeed in college, in their careers and in life.
One of Ms. Lohr’s most memorable experiences was the work that she did on acquiring a sponsor donation of $27,000 to remodel the weight room for Washington’s athletes and clubs to use.

Gabe Chapa was recognized as this year’s Volunteer of the Year. He is very active on our campus by helping support our boys’ basketball program. He and head coach Ty Bauer met many years ago when Mr. Bauer was coaching his elementary school basketball program. It was then that he knew he would someday volunteer his time to help support his mentor and coach.
Mr. Chapa graduated from Moon Valley in 2006 where he was involved in student council, Key Club, golf, basketball and track and field programs. After graduation he went onto ASU and obtained his Bachelors of Science in Civil Engineering. He currently works as a commercial construction projects manager throughout the country. This job does not hold Gabe back from volunteering at Washington. Many times he is rescheduling flights to ensure that he is here for our students.